


Like x A x Girl

by chasing_moonlit_smoke747 (orangeink)



Series: Genderbend [1]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: F/M, Fem!Ging, Female Ging, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-08-09 03:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7784950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeink/pseuds/chasing_moonlit_smoke747
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles featuring fem!Ging.  Shameless, plotless self-indulgence. Fem!Ging/Pariston.  Part one of my Genderbend Series featuring various anime, manga, T.V. show, book, and movie characters.</p><p>Selfish x Search Arc: </p><p>Drabble #5: Gon only asked his Aunt Mito about his father once.  </p><p>Drabble #6: Whale Island was a place where fathers raised their sons to catch fish and build boats, to make a living on the sea and bring the harvest home to the mothers and daughters who ruled the house and cleaned the fish.</p><p>Drabble #7: Months after the Hunter Exam Gon tells Killua that the reason he left Whale Island to take the Hunter Exam was to find his mother.  But that’s not the whole truth.</p><p>Drabble #8: You may be selfish for abandoning me, Gon thinks, numb to the tears in Killua’s eyes as the world burns around them and Pitou is in viciously satisfying pieces strewn around the clearing, but I might be worse for the things I’ve done. Like mother, like son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In x The x Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my sandbox!
> 
> This drabble series was inspired by sexism in the 2016 Rio Olympics -- scratch that, sexism in general -- and my subsequent irritation. Though really that was just the spark that made me get these drabbles out of my head and onto paper. The truth is I’ve always been curious about how people would perceive Ging and his controversial actions if he were female. Basically, this is just a playground where I explore my various headcanons of Ging if he were a girl. 
> 
> Also, fair warning that these drabbles may not make much sense, because they're mostly half-formed ideas and likely not in chronological order.
> 
> That said, please enjoy!

**In X The X Beginning**

 

When she first left Whale Island at the tender age of eleven and entered the Hunter Exam, just a slip of a girl with a ratty old scarf and eyes like hazel fire, she was laughed at and ridiculed. The other contestants thought she was a joke and sneered at this little girl trying to play in a man’s world.

 

They underestimated her, a child born with estrogen instead of testosterone. For many, it was the last mistake they ever made.

 

She laughed, oblivious to the hatred and awe in their eyes as she left them in her dust, her only tattered relic from home whipping in the wind, leaving a trail of denim blue thread behind her.

 

She was the only one to pass her Hunter Exam. That alone spoke volumes about her, and her name whispered its way around the world like fire across oil-slick water; like blood spreading through snow.

 

“Did you hear?” said one man to another; said a mother to her daughter, “The only one to pass the 267th Hunter Exam was a twelve-year-old girl.”

 

“What?” Disbelief. “No way. Must be some kind of monster.”

 

“Maybe. Ging Freecss: twelve-year-old monster.”

 

It had a nice ring to it.

 

**GXxXF**


	2. She X Was X Something X Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was something like smoke, impossible to catch. She was something like tarnished gold, glittering dimly in the dust until you took a second look and the sun caught her edges and you were blinded by her brilliance.

**She X Was X Something X Like**

She was something like smoke, impossible to catch. She was something like tarnished gold, glittering dimly in the dust until you took a second look and the sun caught her edges and you were blinded by her brilliance.

 

She was something like a thunderstorm, fierce and ever-moving; there one minute and gone the next.  Something like a glacier, endlessly patient.  Something like a snake, quick and deadly.  Something like a tiger, graceful and mesmerizing.

 

She was something like a spider, weaving a web and retreating to watch her prey fall into her trap.

 

She was something like a boar, strong and unyielding.

 

She was rough-around-the-edges; too wild for most to tolerate (the taste of ozone bitter on their tongues as she left them in her wake); too thirsty for knowledge and the thrill of the hunt to be content in one place for long.

 

Sometimes she let the wind carry her where it would.  Sometimes she caught the scent of a particular hunt, a particular _challenge_ , and followed it for years, relentless in her pursuit of whatever caught her fancy.

 

She raised ruins from their ashes, built monuments to honor the world’s vast history. She tamed beasts and brought some of the so-called ‘most powerful’ men in the world to their knees. She stayed to the edge of society, content to explore an uncharted wilderness in her own company. She was notorious for her patience and her ability to vanish from the face of the Earth whenever it pleased her.

 

Any information that could be found on her was worth millions of jenni. Her origins were a mystery, her habits were unknown, and for the most part her abilities were undocumented.

 

There were only three concrete facts the majority of the Hunter Association could concur were true:

  1. Her name was Ging Freecs
  2. She was female
  3. She was one of the most powerful Nen users in the world, and was quite capable of wiping the floor with you



 

Unspoken was a fourth fact: Ging Freecs broke bones with as much ease as she broke hearts (and with less effort). Too many had felt the magnetic pull of her charisma; too many were left unfulfilled when she stared past them to the next horizon.

 

Ging held the Hunter Association’s unofficial title for Most Elusive and Infuriatingly Oblivious Woman in the World.

 

Ging Freecs was something like the sun, distant but tremendously powerful; beautiful and untouchable.

 

_(Don’t fly too close to the sun, Icarus, or you will burn.)_

**GXxXF**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> I'm really curious to know what you guys thought of this drabble. I personally believe that Ging's extreme charisma is one of the key characteristics of his/her personality. In the Hunter X Hunter series, Ging is consistently able to draw together people of all sorts of backgrounds/personalities/creeds in a frankly amazing display of charm and the force of his/her personality. I believe this trait, combined with Ging's immense physical strength and cleverness, would leave many people star-struck at the very least.
> 
> I feel this puppy love would be even more compounded if Ging were female and these admirable traits shone through in a generally male-dominated society of Hunters -- I think many would trip over the line from puppy love and hero worship into lust at the very least. However, I also think these traits would be offset by Ging's general gruffness and disregard for social decorum. Ging simply does what he/she wants when he/she wants, and this has the potential to step on some toes.
> 
> In any case, I look forward to further exploring these aspects of Ging's personality later on in this drabble series. Please leave a comment or kudos if you feel so inclined and check back next time.
> 
> Thank you!


	3. Jungle X Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble #3: Pariston Hill has a mind palace.

**Jungle X Mind**

Pariston Hill has a mind palace. It rises out of a glittering sea of cold starlight and is backlit by a sky the color of amber, a breathtaking jewel of elegant ivory curves gilded in gold.

 

There is an entire wing of the palace dedicated to Ging, containing a library with all his careful notes on their encounters, as well as entire shelves of volumes filled with the plots he has against her and the operations he suspects she’s running against him.

 

The library is flanked by a ballroom to the left and a jungle to the right. The ballroom gleams with weapons on the walls and echoes with the sound of Ging’s rough laughter, something he tries viciously to drown out with classical music, to no avail.

 

Unless he’s feeling especially masochistic, he keeps the door to the ballroom boarded up and nailed shut.

 

On the days when he’s feeling especially masochistic _and_ brave, he ventures into the jungle. The moment he steps foot under the leafy canopy, he is enveloped by the cloying silence of a world more ancient and less sentient than humanity. Unbidden, his shoulders relax and the khaki safari uniform his mind subconsciously assigns to cloak his body morphs into a simple shirt and durable pants (a combo he would not be caught dead in when out and about in the real world).

 

He ghosts over gnarled, tangled roots and his instincts sharpen. The deeper he wanders among the trees and vines and watchful eyes of a thousand different creatures, the more his façade of civility is washed away. Pariston’s breath comes easier and his exploration becomes more of a prowl as he catches a scent – _her scent_ – and follows it through the jungle.

 

Pariston trails after the intoxicating aroma of flora and blood and pine for hours. Sometimes he finds her and sometimes he doesn’t. Regardless, she always leads him on a merry chase.

 

(And he is under no illusion that he finds her because of his own skill. No, the only way he even comes close is because she _lets_ him. It’s infuriating and invigorating, something that boils his blood and carves a smile across his face.)

 

A branch overhead rustles almost inaudibly, and Pariston’s excitement spikes.

 

He’s in luck today. Eyes dark, he pulls a knife from his belt and sends it spinning into the shadows above.

 

Seconds later, he dives out of the way as the blade comes back down with enough force to split his skull. A lithe figure follows the knife to the earth and lands easily, hazel eyes gleaming.

 

“You’ll have to do better than that,” his mind-projection of Ging says.

 

“But of course, my dear,” he replies, and the race is on.

 

Sometimes he catches her, and sometimes he doesn’t.

 

Sometimes he pins her against a tree; sometimes she drives him to the ground.

 

Sometimes crimson stains the jungle leaves; sometimes Ging’s laughter rings through the trees.

 

Sometimes music from the ballroom floats by in the wind, and his blood settles enough that he decides he doesn’t want the light to fade from her eyes. Not yet. Not when he’s playing tag with a simple mind-projection instead of facing off against the real thing.

 

Today he manages to win. Her back digs into bark and his breathing is heavy as he drinks in her scent.

 

“One day,” he promises her, voice rough and teeth too close to her neck, “you and I will do this for real. Then we’ll decide once and for all who’s superior.”

 

In reply, she drives her knee between his legs and watches dispassionately as he crumples.

 

“I look forward to it,” she says, her words an echoing convergence of imagination and reality.

 

From his position on his knees before her, Pariston meets her gaze. With eyes black as blood under the moonlight, he smiles.

 

Ging smirks.

 

The music fades.

 

**GXxXF**


	4. Mysterious X Disappearance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At age nineteen, Ging Freecs pulled her first disappearing act

**Mysterious X Disappearance**

 

At age nineteen, Ging Freecs pulled her first disappearing act.

 

After a prolonged stay in York New City, she took an airship headed east. She never arrived at her destination.

 

Having been a Hunter for nearly seven years, her strength and unpredictability had landed her on the radars of leaders worldwide.

 

Pariston Hill had an entire spy network dedicated to keeping track of her movements. Isaac Netero cocked his head when her name popped up in conversation. The kings and queens of several countries paid handsomely for knowledge of her whereabouts (to prepare for the fallout when she either raised hell or discovered breathtaking ruins hidden deep in forests or buried under sand). Silva Zoldyck assigned his eldest son, Illumi, the task of stalking her and reporting back his observations.

 

“If you can keep Ging Freecs from noticing your presence for more than an hour,” Silva said to his son, “I will honor you as a master of stealth.”

 

The airship flight that Ging disappeared from flew a course for a duration of eighteen hours. Once it left behind the thriving civilization of York New City, the airship passed over mostly rugged terrain and forests.

 

There were thousands of square miles Ging Freecs could have disappeared into; it was impossible to narrow down the search.

 

Illumi returned to the Zoldyck family estate and told his father he had lost track of his target; Silva merely hummed in response.

 

When he was informed that Ging was missing, Netero laughed heartily.

 

“Such a remarkable girl,” he said, stroking his beard. “I have a feeling things are about to get much more interesting. Let her be for now. Inform me when she resurfaces.”

 

Then, to the bemusement and befuddlement of his aids, Netero proceeded to order a baby blanket, shipping it off without explanation to some place called ‘Whale Island.’

 

When he received the report that Ging had vanished, Pariston slit his spy’s throat and turned to stare out the window of his study.

 

“Why?” he asked the dead air, beseeching the blood that spread beneath his feet in an ever-growing crimson puddle. “What is she planning?”

 

Apprehension gnawed at Pariston for months, only easing when rumors reached his network that Ging had reappeared long enough to put together something called ‘Greed Island,’ only to vanish again.

 

Pariston wasn’t sure how to feel when, months after Ging sent shock waves through the Hunter community with the release of Greed Island, it was confirmed that she had been spotted with a baby bouncing on her hip.

 

A _baby_.

 

Pariston may have accidently lost control of his temper and annihilated most of his spy network the day he learned _that_ particular piece of information, struggling to comprehend what the hell _Ging Freecs_ could be doing with a _baby_.

 

_Is that why she dropped off the radar all those months ago?_ He wondered, although deep down he knew the answer: _She went to ground in the place she’s most comfortable – the jungle. She was pregnant and she didn’t trust anyone to know when she was at her most vulnerable, so she disappeared. Clever._

 

Wiping blood off his face with his silk handkerchief, Pariston smiled at the rest of his hand-picked spies, who did nothing more than quiver and stare in horror as he eviscerated their comrade.

 

“You’re in luck,” Pariston said to the survivors. “I have more important things to deal with today. Report back when you’ve found something useful. Last one to find me interesting information will end up like your friends here.”

 

Suitably motivated, his spies vanished like shadows (like Ging into the jungle, and, later, like the infant son she was rumored to be carrying around).

 

**GXxXF**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little drabble. See y'all next time!
> 
> P.S. I'm thinking of writing a Modern!AU drabble. Any ideas?


	5. Selfish x Search x Part x One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble #5: Gon only asked his Aunt Mito about his father once. The truth was Mito didn’t even know the name of her cousin’s son’s father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next three drabbles overlap a little bit and explore Gon's relationship with his mother. Since people have been asking why Gon would still seek out Ging if she was no longer his father, I got to thinking and this is what I came up with. :) Enjoy and let me know what you think! What are your theories?

**Selfish X Search X Part X One**

_“I don't want to see you. Frankly, I don't know how I can see you. I gave up being a mother to be what I really am. Quite selfish. It'll be at least ten years before you listen to this. But even during that amount of time, there's something that'll never change. I am what I really am.”_ \-- Ging to Gon via cassette tape

**GXxXF**

Gon only asked his Aunt Mito about his father once. She told him as much as she could – which admittedly wasn’t much. All she knew, all she could say, was that his father must have been tall and handsome with hair that glinted green (because wasn’t Gon growing up so fast, with hair like raven’s wings?).

 

The truth was Mito didn’t even know the name of her cousin’s son’s father. (Ging hadn’t deigned to tell her when she appeared out of nowhere and left Mito with a baby boy to raise.)

 

Gon waited patiently for Mito to say more than she did, but when it became clear she had no more information left to give him, his bright eyes darkened.

 

“Oh,” he said, and disappeared into the woods.

 

He didn’t return for three days.

 

When he finally slipped through the door, he wrapped his arms around Mito’s waist and buried his face in her apron. Mito stroked his wild, tufted hair until he brought his brilliant eyes up to meet her own.

 

“I’ll ask her,” Gon said. “I’ll find her and I’ll ask her.”

 

Mito could only nod, and tears stung her eyes as Gon hugged her again, his muffled voice saying, “I love you, Aunt Mito.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this three-part drabble series, I will post the next drabble every Friday. Stay tuned!


	6. Selfish x Search x Part x Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble #6: Whale Island was a place where fathers raised their sons to catch fish and build boats, to make a living on the sea and bring the harvest home to the mothers and daughters who ruled the house and cleaned the fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your kudos and comments! Without further ado, allow me to introduce Part 2 of the beginning of Gon's complicated relationship with his mother.

**Selfish X Search X Part X Two**

_“I don't want to see you. Frankly, I don't know how I can see you. I gave up being a mother to be what I really am. Quite selfish. It'll be at least ten years before you listen to this. But even during that amount of time, there's something that'll never change. I am what I really am.”_ \-- Ging to Gon via cassette tape

**GXxXF**

 

Whale Island was a place where fathers raised their sons to catch fish and build boats, to make a living on the sea and bring the harvest home to the mothers and daughters who ruled the house and cleaned the fish.

 

Living with his aunt and grandmother, Gon did not have a male relative to teach him the ways of life on Whale Island. There was no one to rouse him before dawn and drag him down to the fishing boats, no one to teach him how to follow the fish migration patterns and weave nets the poisonous spines on the sea monsters couldn’t cut through.

 

Gon taught himself all these things. (Except he much preferred a fishing rod to a net.) His Aunt Mito made sure he was up at dawn every day. He helped out around the house before going down the hill to town to pick up some odd jobs.

 

Gon’s cheerful disposition made him popular, but some still whispered as he passed, murmuring about how it was such a shame there was no man in the house to make sure he was raised right and why hadn’t young Mito gotten a husband yet? Surely she was due to be married? _Someone_ from the Freecs family had to act respectable, after that girl Ging up and—

 

The small boy with raven hair skipped by, and the baker’s wife clamped a hand down on her customers’ mouths to silence their gossip before Gon came within earshot. She thought she had spared him, but Gon could hear heartbeats from a hundred meters away. Eavesdropping on too-loud, too-bored, too-nosy old women was no challenge. (Sometimes, Gon wished his ears weren’t so finely tuned.)

 

Some of the fishermen remembered Gon’s grandfather – a quiet man who was nonetheless always willing to lend a helping hand, an extremely gifted fisherman – and tried to draw him into their sphere of influence to honor his grandfather’s memory. But their efforts were always half-hearted, lukewarm.

 

Gon soaked up information like a sponge, too-keen eyes glinting as he stared in fascination at the nets and hooks and shimmering scales. Fish leapt out of the ocean and into his hands.

 

His prowess and the intensity of his focus was disturbing. The men stopped offering to teach him when he was nine years old, so Gon took to exploring the woods.

 

He tried valiantly to ignore the heavy, bruised feeling in his chest every time he passed through the village and saw fathers laughing with their sons. Conversations stopped when Gon drew near, and he tried to combat the awkward silence by piping up with a cheery greeting, exuding energy because it was easier (and less painful) to smile than to contemplate being the only child on the whole island with an unknown father and a mother who had disappeared into the sunset.

 

_A mother who_ abandoned _him_ , the darkest part of his mind whispered.

 

_Aunt Mito is my mother. I don’t need anyone else_ , Gon retorted fiercely. But the words rang hollow, because he couldn’t help but wonder what his parents were like.

 

Gon turned away from the whole, happy families in the village and sought refuge in the forest.

 

But within years the woods were as confining as the village; Gon could traverse both with his eyes closed.

 

His eyes drifted toward the horizon. Gon knew, deep down, that there was only one person who could answer his questions. Her picture hung on the wall in his house, face half-cast in shadow, lips stretched in a smirk following a jawline that mirrored Gon’s own.

 

_I love you, Aunt Mito_ , Gon closed his eyes and stood, slinging his fishing rod across his shoulders. _This will hurt you, and for that I’m sorry. But I need to know._

His decision made, Gon trotted up the mountain, heading home for the last time.

 

He had a boat to catch. And an Exam to pass.

 

**GXxXF**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for Part 3 next Friday!


	7. Selfish x Search x Part x Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 of the Selfish Search Arc: Months after the Hunter Exam he tells Killua that the reason he left Whale Island to take the Hunter Exam was to find his mother. But that’s not the whole truth, and Gon’s fervor to achieve his goal is at once bolstered and tempered when they find the recording with Ging’s voice.

**GXxXF**

**Selfish X Search X Part X Three**

_“I don't want to see you. Frankly, I don't know how I can see you. I gave up being a mother to be what I really am. Quite selfish. It'll be at least ten years before you listen to this. But even during that amount of time, there's something that'll never change. I am what I really am.”_ \-- Ging to Gon via cassette tape

**GXxXF**

Months after the Hunter Exam he tells Killua that the reason he left Whale Island to take the Hunter Exam was to find his mother. But that’s not the whole truth, and Gon’s fervor to achieve his goal is at once bolstered and tempered when they find the recording with Ging’s voice.

 

The phantom audial footprint more than a decade old offers him the chance to hear about his father, if only he’ll keep listening—

 

Gon reaches out and stops the tape player. He is numb when the tape erases itself, neutral to Killua’s frantic attempts to salvage the information from the tape, because the white-haired boy knows it’s the closest Gon has come to finding Ging in his entire life. In those moments, Gon is consumed in contemplating a peculiar gnawing void in his chest that yawns wide and _aches_.

 

“It’s alright, Killua,” Gon says, staring at his hands and at the four walls that saw him grow from babe to toddler to pre-teen. “I’m going to find Ging and ask her myself.”

 

Killua looks at him with sapphire eyes that pierce like blades (a sweet pain that eases the _ache_ in his chest for a moment), but Gon remains silent.

 

_I’ll find Ging_ , Gon vows to himself. _I’ll ask her about my dad, and . . . I’ll ask her why she abandoned me, why she left me behind. I want to see her eyes when she answers. I want to hear her heartbeat so I know she isn’t lying._

 

Aunt Mito calls the boys down to dinner, and Gon gets to his feet. His chest feels bruised again in a way it hasn’t since he left the village so long ago, fleeing the too-happy too-whole families whose laughter chased him up the mountain until he sought solitude beneath the dappled shadows of trees and amongst the rustling of animals in the underbrush.

 

Gon pauses as he passes Ging’s picture on the wall, raises his head to scrutinize the dark tufts of hair that spill out from under the turban she wears.

 

_I’ll find you_ , he promises. _Whatever it takes. I want this hunt to end._

**GXxXF**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post the fourth and final part next Friday. Let me know what y'all think. How do you think Ging and Gon's tumultuous relationship would manifest itself if Ging were female?


	8. Selfish x Search x Part x Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final installment of the Selfish x Search arc. 
> 
> Sorry I'm late, guys, Finals season is killing me. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**Selfish X Search X Part X Four**

_“I don't want to see you. Frankly, I don't know how I can see you. I gave up being a mother to be what I really am. Quite selfish. It'll be at least ten years before you listen to this. But even during that amount of time, there's something that'll never change. I am what I really am.”_ \-- Ging to Gon via cassette tape

**GXxXF**

 

_You may be selfish for abandoning me_ , Gon thinks, numb to the tears in Killua’s eyes as the world burns around them and Pitou is in viciously satisfying pieces strewn around the clearing, _but I might be worse for the things I’ve done. Like mother, like son._

 

Gon wants to laugh – a helpless, bitter, strangled sound – but darkness is closing in: _We’re so similar and I haven’t even met you yet._

 

Lightning flashes in his peripheral vision. As Gon crumples to the blood-stained forest floor all he can see is Killua. Killua’s tear-filled blue eyes and _shattered_ expression, like someone has taken his heart and stomped on it, torn it to shreds and spat on the remains.

 

_Killua_ , Gon thinks, wishing his friend could read his mind because his throat is on fire and he can’t get the words out, convulsing as he struggles to retain the energy that flows out through his pores and scorches the air. _Killua, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for dragging you into this._

 

The snow-haired assassin is lunging for him now, determined to save him from hitting the ground and all Gon can think is—

 

_Don’t cry for me, please. Hate me – I deserve it. Hate me because I’m so_ selfish _and I hurt you. Killua, Killua, I’m sorry._

 

_I’m sorry._ Gon thinks, but he doesn’t know who he’s apologizing to, anymore (is it Killua? Ging? Himself?). Gon’s eyes roll back in his head, and darkness steals him away from pain and tears and memories of faded pictures on the walls.

**GXxXF**

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked my first foray into this idea of how things would change if Ging were born female. The plain, sad truth of it is that Ging would get a lot more criticism for his actions and behavior if he were a woman, and I plan to explore the complex facets of that fact throughout this little series.
> 
> Please let me know what you think -- I'd love to hear your ideas on how Ging's life would change if he were female.
> 
> See you all next time!


End file.
